Mantegazza Pietro Martire

Very little is known of his life, save that he was likely the son of Filippo Mantegazza. Within the landscape of fifteenth-century Milanese typography, the Mantegazza workshop—though not among the most prolific—adhered to a remarkably rigorous editorial vision. It distinguished itself by favoring vernacular works by contemporary authors and Italian translations of classical texts, alongside brief historical, occasional, and religiously edifying pamphlets.

The most prominent editions for which Mantegazza is remembered include the Italian translations of Lucan’s epic Pharsalia (1492), Ovid’s De arte amandi (1494), and Diogenes Laertius’s Vitae et sententiae philosophorum (1497). To these must be added other truly remarkable milestones: Franchino Gaffurio’s Theorica musicae (1492), which inaugurated the genre of musical printing in Milan (Sartori); the Rime of the Florentine poet Bernardo Bellincioni (1493), featuring the celebrated woodcut of the poet in his study—a work astonishingly not reprinted throughout the sixteenth century and seemingly untouched until 1876 (Fanfani, p. VII)—and the octaves of Gasparo Visconti’s Di Paulo e di Daria amanti (1495).

Mantegazza’s predilection for contemporary authors and widely accessible literature ensured that many of his affordable editions circulated copiously, being extensively read, handled, and inevitably worn out. Indeed, in the prefatory epistle to Di Paulo e di Daria, the editor—referencing a substantial print run of 1,000 copies—declares: "we have offered them at such a price that no gentle soul could do aught but highly praise us."

The direct consequence of this immense popularity and heavy contemporary usage is profound for modern bibliophiles: of the 45 recorded editions from his press, two-thirds survive today in no more than three known copies worldwide.